MRA Paul Elam: “This world deserves a jerk on the collar and a slap across the face and the flying spittle of rage.”

“Compassion for Boys and Men.” This, the slogan of Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, has always struck me as a teensy bit ironic, given that site founder and head angry dude Paul Elam spends much of his time berating other men, and really only seems interested in showing “compassion,” if it can be called that, for those who not only agree with everything he says but also donate money to him.

Recently Mr. Elam ran across a four-year-old video that’s been posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit numerous times in recent days. It shows a young woman assaulting a campus preacher, and knocking him off a platform, after falsely accusing him of groping her. (The woman, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, was arrested and later pled guilty to assault charges, getting a year’s probation, some community service and a fine; the preacher suffered only minor injuries.)

But the fact that a few people in the crowd cheered for the attacker apparently convinced Elam that everyone in the world except him and a few of his pals are worthless pieces of crap.

Look at the crowd cheer this violent lunatic on. It isn’t just her that is the problem. We live in a psychotic world where women can do whatever they want to men, as long as they vomit up a lie, like “get your hand off my breast.” It is a world which praises sickness, as long as the person to suffer for it is male.

Well, actually, it looked like most of the people in the crowd were a bit shocked by her assault and the preacher’s fall, and several people came forward to help him. And I’m not quite sure how Elam managed to miss the fact that the woman in question was led off by police at the end of the video.

In this culture, most every woman is Sharon Osbourne. Most every man is Hugo Schwyzer.

By describing women as a bunch of “Sharon Osbournes,” Elam is not (I don’t think) suggesting that they are savvy, articulate women who’ve been able to not only survive but flourish in male-dominated industries; no, he’s making a reference to the one time that Osbourne made a horrible castration joke on national television, and suggesting that women are a bunch of evil harpies that love to fantasize about cutting men’s dicks off.

By referring to men as “Hugo Schwyzers” — Elam’s post was written before Schwyzer’s recent Twitter meltdown — he’s not (I don’t think) suggesting that men are all a bunch of manipulative predators who glom onto feminism as a way to exploit and manipulate women, but rather suggesting that they’re a bunch of obsequious manginas who let women walk all over them.

I feel confident in attributing these interpretations to Elam’s words because he’s made these arguments many times before. It’s pretty obvious that Elam hates women. It’s only a little less obvious that he hates most men as well.

But I don’t think it’s really this video that’s got Elam angry. It looks to me like he’s still stewing over a recent op-ed by libertarian anti-feminist Cathy Young — a writer in many ways deeply sympathetic to the Men’s Rights ideology — which took a passing shot at A Voice for Men and similar sites whose “steady diet of vulgar woman-bashing … discredits any valid points they may make.”

So far Elam’s site has run at least four other posts — possibly five? I’ve lost count — responding to the single sentence mentioning AVFM in her column, including one by him and another by a “brigade” of self-described “Honey Badgers” (female MRAs), but Elam can’t resist the opportunity to point out yet again that he’s going to remain as angry as he wants to be:

I do not give a rat’s fucking ass about offending or upsetting any of them.

This world does not deserve MHRAs that are decent or measured or considerate of the mainstreams sensibilities. This world deserves a jerk on the collar and a slap across the face and the flying spittle of rage that it earns with each man and boy that it denigrates and abuses.

“The Flying Spittle of Rage” makes a much better — and more accurate — slogan for AVFM than that boring old “Compassion for Boys and Men.”

Boston has nautili (or nautiluses, but that one strikes me as wring and nautili appears to be an accepted plural). Impossible to photograph, deep blue light and flash banned, behind a side wall that blocks the lights in the rest of the building. Stunning creatures though a bit creepy.

My favorite may’ve been the Surinam toad, or rather, the reaction of the kid standing next to me when I went “found it, look way back there”

I really ought to take the kids to the local aquarium. I’m sure they’ll like it, much as Sneak enjoyed your random cuttle, and it’s been a while since I looked at fish. (One of our favorite books as a kid was written by a guy who worked at an aquarium. He was the guy who cleaned the shark tanks.)

Just a quick comment on the “treatment of atheists” and the reaction by some people here to those who mentioned their concerns with bullying, etc. on this particular thread (feel free to skip if you don’t care, of course!)

Generally, as a lurker here, I enjoy the mocking of MRAs, etc. When such trolls come on, they pretty much deserve what they get (and, in fact, actually get less than they deserve!).

But I worry when I see silencing tactics used against people here who don’t apparently reflect the “insider” view on things, but who aren’t saying anything sexist, or racist, etc. Despite accusations to the contrary, I didn’t see the fallacies some accused these particular posters of (intentionally derailing the conversation, trying to cover up a present injustice with a past one)–these accusations appeared primarily to be intended to shut people up. I’d rather use them on MRM trolls than allies!

I get there’s a specific culture here — and sure, it’s easy to say, “if you can’t take it, leave” — but this sounds rather like what I’ve been hearing from certain people on Twitter lately, and it worries me to hear it used here.

And I also get that past threads have been derailed through comments that appeared similar to these people’s ones. But the policing of violations of invisible lines can be abused against well-meaning posters to maintain the power of the “in crowd” (who may not realize that in this space, they are the ones with power, and may not realize their techniques are the same ones that have been used against them in other spaces).

LBT — Sneak’d love it, and considering I was barely more restrained than the folks who come up to my waist, give zer free reign, it should go fine.

Pecunium — if you do go, bring a proper camera and one of those foot strap tripod DYI creations (I can find directions if you can’t), the wall there is leanable and you probably have a steady enough hand to do it.

And y’all have an aquarium? Cuz Mystic does not do it for me since they remodeled (a decade ago, but that’s irrelevant!)

Mystic does not do it for me since they remodeled (a decade ago, but that’s irrelevant!)

It’s seventeen years since they started moving everything out of the old Museum of Victoria site and into the godawful concrete and glass dungeon it now inhabits, where a costume from fucking Neighbours takes pride of place. The old building is held by the State Library and about two-thirds of it are still inaccessible. I haven’t forgiven ‘em all for it yet, so you’ve a long way to go in the Museum Grudge stakes. ;)

So, I was going to weigh in on the thorny issue of when/if it is appropriate to question somebody’s personal beliefs (presuming said beliefs are functionally harmless but not necessarily factually accurate), but then I decided to go poke a hornets’ nest instead.

. . . No, really. Those stripey fuckers were building the hymenopteran equivalent of the Death Star over our front porch, and it had to go. I put on my thickest jacket, rigged up one of those beekeeper hats, and knocked that son-of-a-gun down.

Since I’m still recklessly keyed up from the adrenaline, I will go so far as to suggest that some of the regular commenters here seem to be operating in a radically different epistemological framework than the one I happen to prefer . . . but hey, as long as we can all point and laugh (and cry) at bigotry, why bother sweating the small stuff?

Yellowjackets of some sort, I believe. Whatever they were, they built their nest less than a yard from the front door (but in a tucked-away little corner, so we didn’t notice it until it was the size of a toaster oven and all of a sudden there were wasps everywhere).

Sounds like what the European wasps must’ve done at my place. They’d got into a crack in the eaves, so I’m guessing the nest was established a while. I just saw a fair few of ‘em congregating around my window (luckily it has a more or less intact flyscreen) one day. Never has a pest exterminator been phoned so fast!

Kris: The problem with your oh-so-balanced post is that you neglect the fact that there is a difference between a targeted, directed comment regarding an offensive religious practice or practitioner, a broadside condemnation of an entire religion’s adherents, and a flat-out condemnation of religion as a concept.

The first one? Aces around here, especially if the condemnation is directed at misogynistic conduct. At least one of our regulars is dealing with some serious blow-back from her religiously motivated immediate family, and we’ve been supportive of her AND suitably outraged at the offenders.

The second one? Not so much, except in specific contexts directly related to the board’s purpose. I am not shy about pointing out that any Catholic donating money to their church is, at this point, funding the active and ongoing cover-up of sexual abuse and the war on contraception, and calling them out for it. But that’s still not an attack on their faith-as-such; it’s an attack on the uncritical support they’re giving to their Church’s leadership.

Third one? Not the place for it, period. And if you’re not a skilled enough communicator to make it clear that that is not your intent, then you should probably just set the post aside and move on to another topic.

That “second one” paragraph contains some serious flaws in logic. There are lots of Catholics who donate money to their churches who do not uncritically support the Church leadership, and I’m not sure why you keep insisting that A means B even after multiple people who are Catholic have pointed out that your assumption is incorrect.

(I’m not a fan of the Catholic church at all, and I’m still tired of seeing this kind of “let me tell you what your motives are” thinking.)

Kris: But I worry when I see silencing tactics used against people here who don’t apparently reflect the “insider” view on things, but who aren’t saying anything sexist, or racist, etc. Despite accusations to the contrary, I didn’t see the fallacies some accused these particular posters of (intentionally derailing the conversation, trying to cover up a present injustice with a past one)–these accusations appeared primarily to be intended to shut people up. I’d rather use them on MRM trolls than allies!

This is a tone argument. I’m not of the opinion they are never valid, but I disagree.

This not related to my dog in the present fight; because it’s a different argument altogether.

What happened here was a reaction to a bigotry. Sorry, but there aren’t actually any bigotries I think are off limits; just because the people who have them are flag-bearers, allies, or fellow travellers.

What happened wasn’t, “x said this, and it was wrong about atheists”. There was a touch of that; but it had some other baggage. It was the other baggage which was jumped on. The, “atheism is a religion” line of argument wasn’t jumped on. In fact the regulars here agreed that athieism isn’t a religion; and the different question as to whether or not atheism is a faith-based belief was left lie (because it’s an intractable issue, and not worth trying to argue: no meeting of minds will be attained, and I am not stating an opinion on either side of *that* debate).

That you think the disagreements over what was said were bullying, and not offered in good faith (i.e. primarily to shut people up) isn’t something I can argue against. I can tell you it wasn’t my intent, purpose or aim.

Freemage: The second one? Not so much, except in specific contexts directly related to the board’s purpose. I am not shy about pointing out that any Catholic donating money to their church is, at this point, funding the active and ongoing cover-up of sexual abuse and the war on contraception, and calling them out for it.

To a point. 90 percent of parish donations stay in the parish. A parish which is running a deficit gets more back from it’s diocese than it puts in. If the gap is too great, that parish gets closed.

Moreover, depending on the financial state of the diocese, there may not be any diocesan tithe to “The Church” (and a Parish which is running a significant surplus pays more than 10 percent, but those aren’t as common as one might think, and almost all the money in a diocese never leaves it. The Church has as much as it does because it’s old, and there is a large resisduum of past taxations/donations/investments).

So yes, I will accept that giving money to, “The Church” is supporting some wrongheaded shit, and that some of it is evil, on it’s face, but not all donations to the church are of a nature which does that.

To add to that finance discussion, while The Church has far more power, not like smaller non-Catholic churches don’t condemn gay marriage, abortion, etc. Part of why I refuse to go to church with my mother and pay so much as lip service to her pastor is his insistence on, every Sunday, praying for shit like “babies to be safe in the womb”. She tithes. And, being a local church, it all goes to him.

So yeah, the Vatican certainly has more power but I’m not really okay saying that tithing Catholics are worse than tithing people of other denominations (for those unfamiliar with tithing, it’s “donating” 10% of your income to your church, except by her pastor’s view it’s pretty much required, he has a habit of preaching on how important it is [to pad his pockets])

See, this is why I enjoy being a member of the Church of Ed Wood. No tithes at all! (Unless you count a yearly watching of Glen or Glenda or Bride of the Atom.)

Mac’s Southern Baptist, not Catholic (sort of–conflict is an understatement), but he tends to find Catholic churches beautiful. Every once in a while, he’ll sneak into a service. I think he sat in on a Mass in Chicago, and was totally stupefied by the gorgeous atmosphere and decided to donate. It was only after he had that he saw the big Homosexual Hellfire pamphlets out front. Then he felt bad and slunk out and far as I know hasn’t set foot in a Catholic church again.

Louis used to be Catholic, of course, and very devout, but these days he doesn’t even like going in to churches. Of course that could be partly ‘cos the few churches we’ve set foot in out here are Victorian Gothic Clunky and not even aesthetically appealing, even when they’re not part of the toxic mobs.

Though it still doesn’t rank with Wild Zero, a movie a lot of people I know this is complete shit, but I love unironically and earnestly. It is still the BEST movie for curing my trans angst I’ve ever seen, and it got me into the band Guitar Wolf.